Interesting numbers that someone will ultimately say are meaningless...

So in another thread, a discussion evolved involving Peyton Manning and his career effectiveness. Predictably, the playoff discussion came up, as did the home/road splits throughout his career. My stance has been that Manning is an all-time great who is arguably the best ever at home, but morphs into something more of Ken Anderson (still very good) when the elements come into play. Throw in his age, the severity of his injury, and the subsequent natural career arc, and I'm concerned about exactly how effective he'll be for his new team, especially if that team happens to play in an environment that isn't always weather-friendly.

To rehash, here are some of the numbers I threw out. I found these to be interesting.

But the playoff debate has evolved as well, so we may as well take this one step further. Following is a list of Manning's rating/YPA for each playoff game he's competed in, from highest to lowest. Home games will be bolded, Neutral (SB) italicized

-First of all, that's an incredible variance. A total variance of 127.1, home variance of 96, and road variance of 107.5.
-He had 5 performances with a rating over 100. 4 of those 5 were at home (in a dome).
-He had 5 performances with a rating under 70. 4 of those 5 were on the road (outdoors).
-His Super Bowl run in 2006/07 is interesting. 71.9, 39.6, 79.1, 81.8.
-I still have no idea how he lost that Jets game, which turned out to be his last game played as a Colt.
-In every other loss, including his excellent performance against SD and his decent performance against Pit (skewed by the INT no call as Mike stated in another post), he was the 2nd best QB on the field.

We've seen the playoff numbers, but my objective in this exercise was to compare Peyton to others when playing in the elements. In the regular season, he went from THE all-timer to merely very good. In the post season, you can see the results, but here are the road totals.

Am I the only one who laughed out loud when I saw Brees's composite numbers in 3 games?

Anyway, these numbers are incredibly eye-opening. When you take Peyton Manning out of his friendly confines and throw him into a hostile environment with unpredictable elements, he folds. The other QBs have traveled much better than Manning, even Brees despite not owning a road victory. And while Brady and Roethlisberger have an "advantage" since they play all of their games in the elements, that is a gigantic drop in numbers for Manning, while Roethlisberger's rate stats are incredible.

The fact is, for a guy universally recognized as a top 5 all-time QB, and who many argue is the best to ever play, when you take him out of a controlled environment, his numbers drop significantly. Add in the playoff element, when the Colts were playing better teams, and the numbers fold in catastrophic fashion. All-time players are supposed to step their game up when facing the most difficult circumstances. Manning hasn't been able to do that, even when the rest of his team carried him through the playoffs to a Super Bowl championship.

The problem with Manning is not whether or not he was great, he clearly was. The problem is how often the best QB of his generation was only the 2nd best QB on the field when the games mattered most.

Or is it that the less games there are, the more 1 or 2 good games skews the statistics? And at home, maybe Ben had a couple bad games that really brought down his numbers? Ben's numbers for away games are higher than what he normally puts up and Ben's home numbers are lower than what he normally puts up. He's in the middle of the two. In fact, if you take his home and away YPAs and you add them together and divide by 2, you get 8.06...just .06 more than his career average. This kind of comparison is good for career comparisons, but not playoffs. Liken it to GPA. Your freshman year, if you got 2 as and 3 bs, your GPA is 3.4. If you got an a, b+, b, c, c next semester, your GPA is a 3.15. Now imagine if you're a senior. You took 90 credits and got 2 As and 3 Bs in every semester. You have a 3.4 GPA. Now you take your first semester of senior year and get a, b+, b, c, c, your GPA is 3.33. A difference of .18. The impact of those grades gets diminished the more higher grades you get.

@packa I agree stats aren't the end all be all of the situation. However they are a predicate factor in assessing how a guy plays. They can point out correlations. The correlation here is pm isn't a very good playoff qb. His record and then the stats trumpet posted tell a story. And I won't under any circumstances buy that pm "drug his crap team" to 12+ wins that many times and that many division titles in a row, playing in the toughest conference at the time, and playing a 1st place schedule. Then add in his worst collective post season is the one he won a ring. Pm wasnt dragging anyone.

The point at which I totally tune out the wailing of pm apologists and excuse making for his lack of ability to win in the playoffs was a spot on post by iwatt the other day. The colts defense allowed 20.89pts per playoff game. The steelers d allowed 22.5 points for Ben. I think we can all agree the colts have had an offense that quite clearly regularly outscored the steelers offense. Somehow the steelers still won those games, eventhough their d wasn't nearly ad good as during the regular season, all the while the colts d GOT BETTER in the playoffs and the o couldn't get it done.

Trumpet said it very succinctly, the best guys step up the most when the game is the biggest. There's no way to color mannings performance in the playoffs as anything other than he doesn't step up.

We may be comparing small sample sizes, but there's no other way to compare them. Every qb will have a small sample size of playoff games. Why its relevant is because were comparing them to other guys from the same era with a similar number of games played. Matter of fact, they all play in the same conference. It's apples to apples. Saying the sample is too small is a cop out in an attempt to make us avert our eyes from the facts.

As far as the splits between home and away for Ben, and I'm surprised trumpet didn't already point this out. Ben has only played home games under Arians, except for 2 his rookie season, when the game was too big for him. Conversely, he only played one away game under Arians, vs the donkeys when we got tebowed. Tells me I'm vindicated in my hatred for Arians. My lord how Arians stunted his growth.

"If I could start my life all over again, I would be a professional football player, and you damn well better believe I would be a Pittsburgh Steeler." Jack Lambert, 1990 HoF Introduction.

Of every single qb with 14 playoff games, there are 2 that don't have a winning record. Pm and wait for it.... Dan Marino. The only other guy that was even within a game of .500 in the playoffs on that list is Jim Kelly, and 4 of his losses were in superbowls.

Comparing apples to apples manning is so far below the mendoza its insane. At least Marino played mostly before free agency, or he would have likely had a winning record also, add to that only 4 teams made the playoffs the 1st 6 seasons or Marinos career, and 5 for the remainder. Marino played better teams in the playoffs than manning. Imo manning is the anti Montana. He's the worst of all the all time qbs in the playoffs. Most of the list is guys (with 14 starts) over 65% win pct. As one would expect. The fact that pm is one of two guys who have sub .500 records tells a tale. Of guys with 7 playoff appearances 35 are .500 or better. Only 11 fall below .500. 76% of guys with 7 playoff games are .500 or better.

It may not be enough games for packa to buy it, but it certainly is for me. We've judged the all time other qbs and lauded them because of their post season achievements, its only fair given the same data we take manning to task for his inability to produce given the same circumstances...

Last edited by mikesteelnation1; 03-10-2012 at 04:11 AM.

"If I could start my life all over again, I would be a professional football player, and you damn well better believe I would be a Pittsburgh Steeler." Jack Lambert, 1990 HoF Introduction.

Intersting, Trumpet. The Thing with domes, is that it affects everybody on the team. The defense is much better at home (Ask Collingsworth how Lucas Oil rocks when he runs games there). The DL is built to tee off on turf. They built a speedy defense. The crowd gets really quiet when Peyton runs his O (very disciplined fans).

So yes, windf and cold affect Manning. BUt the turf and sound affects his teamates as well.

“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.”― Napoleon Bonaparte

But no, seriously, if those were Manning's career numbers or even his numbers for one season, I'd be more inclined to accept a trend. The fact that these away games span 12 years take away from the validity of the numbers. The fact tat it's such a small sample size takes away from the validity of these numbers.

@packa I agree stats aren't the end all be all of the situation. However they are a predicate factor in assessing how a guy plays.

But when Ben has inferior stats, comebacks and wins count, right? I think that stats ARE the end all and be all of the situation, I just think the proper application of those stats is needed.

They can point out correlations. The correlation here is pm isn't a very good playoff qb.

So is Ben not a good home playoff QB? That's what the correlation states. But you know damn well that Ben is a good QB whether he's home, away, regular season, playoffs, rain, sleet, snow, hail, tornado, or apocalypse Correlation =\= causation. There's a correlation between the number of churches and the crime rate in a city. The more churches there are, the higher the crime rate is. Does that mean that churches cause crime? No! It means that there is a higher population there and thus more crimes occur.

And I won't under any circumstances buy that pm "drug his crap team" to 12+ wins that many times and that many division titles in a row, playing in the toughest conference at the time, and playing a 1st place schedule. Then add in his worst collective post season is the one he won a ring. Pm wasnt dragging anyone.

Agree with this completely, I guess you're referencing my post in the other thread saying that it seems like Ben's play lowers, yet the Steelers win, but PM's play lowers and the Colts lose? I was just making a point that the stats inferred that Ben won despite posting inferior postseason stats.

The point at which I totally tune out the wailing of pm apologists and excuse making for his lack of ability to win in the playoffs was a spot on post by iwatt the other day. The colts defense allowed 20.89pts per playoff game. The steelers d allowed 22.5 points for Ben. I think we can all agree the colts have had an offense that quite clearly regularly outscored the steelers offense. Somehow the steelers still won those games, eventhough their d wasn't nearly ad good as during the regular season, all the while the colts d GOT BETTER in the playoffs and the o couldn't get it done.

This is a very valid point. It'd be interesting to see how Ben's d played in wins vs losses. When you guys lost to GB, Ben started out rough but recovered. When all was said and done, Rodgers lit the Steelers d up for 300 yards and 3 TDs. I'm going to do some research on this and post it in a bit.

Trumpet said it very succinctly, the best guys step up the most when the game is the biggest. There's no way to color mannings performance in the playoffs as anything other than he doesn't step up.

But Ben sucks at home in the playoffs, right? I mean come on. Less than 200 YPG, 1:1 TD:INT, sub 8 YPA? But somehow he won 62% of his home games??? Hmmmmm. Yup. All Ben.

As far as the splits between home and away for Ben, and I'm surprised trumpet didn't already point this out. Ben has only played home games under Arians, except for 2 his rookie season, when the game was too big for him. Conversely, he only played one away game under Arians, vs the donkeys when we got tebowed. Tells me I'm vindicated in my hatred for Arians. My lord how Arians stunted his growth.

Now, you bring up PPG, it's skewed heavily by bad games for the Steelers. In their losses they allowed 33 PPG, in their wins they allowed 18 PPG. The Colts are a lot closer to that central number of 20 PPG. You bring up the point that the Steelers don't put up as many points as the Colts, but isn't that a direct relation to QB play?

In Ben's wins, the Steelers put up 267 points. The Colts put up 285 points.

Manning scored more and got LESS help from his defense, contributing more to the win than Ben.

But PM faced fluff teams, right? Nope. The average defense Ben faced when he won? 9th in the league in points scored. PM? 6.44th in the league in points scored.

So Manning completed 9% more of his passes, 130 more yards per game, and 7 more TDs in one less game, DESPITE playing against tougher defenses AND he contributed more to his team's wins EVEN if you include rushing TDs. So let's stop this myth that Manning is bad in the playoffs, please? Manning struggles at times, but so does every other QB.